Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Nov. 29-Dec. 5 | Your News & Comments: Part 1
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49 comments:
Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."
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Today, I'm going to learn how to cash a check issued in British pounds.
ReplyDeleteIf I were you, I'd hold on to it until the day before it expires.
ReplyDeleteIt'll be worth a little more (in USD) by then!
Will the dreaded F-word email blast go out this week?
ReplyDeleteAccording to my records, last year's went out officially on 12/1/09.
I suspect we'll know here on Tuesday (thanks in advance to My Boss Said), and all those who don't read the G-Blog will get an email from their publisher Wednesday afternoon.
That's my prediction.
Meanwhile remember:
It's never too early to get your requests in:
http://www.furloughhouseswap.com/
11/28/2010 2:16 PM: "The company has promoted the GPCs as a way to save money as part of an overall efficiency drive. But critics say the GPCs reduce customer service and slow turnaround time, as ads are built far from the communities where advertisers do business. Critics have also said the GPCs will result in more errors in ads because fewer eyes will view each one. And they've said advertisers will turn to other publishers that keep jobs local. Other readers may now want to add their own thoughts."
ReplyDeleteI, for one, am freelancing, and wonder how many other former Gannett designers are freelancing or still out of work. Can't understand why some of you sales-folks don't attempt to contact a favorite designer with whom you've had a decent relationship with and ask them to do an ad for you. Many of us have the capacity at home with our Macs or PCs and whatever design program we have. I happen to have everything I had while working at Gannett. By the way, some of the ads I build for a small hometown paper or two are ads I worked on while employed by Gannett!
Jim, what is the possibility of creating a database of available designers by area? It wouldn't be actually posted here on the blog, but maybe we could figure out a way to match-up sales reps and designers, if need be.
Hey ,it's not just furloughs to watch for this week.
ReplyDeleteDecemeber is National Layoff month in Gannettland.
This month is, Cut-It-To-The Bone month,in terms
of people elimination.
Each of the last big rounds of layoffs
began in December !!
Think back fellow Gannettoids....anyone have
a calm and stressless December in the last 2 years??
They have to start the New Year with less expense.It seems that is the only way to improve the bottome line.Revenues are certainly
not improving,so how else?
Earlier posts concerning GPC were very illuminating. I'd really like to see a continuation of posts since there has been a true strange silence prior to these posts about GPC from anyone in the know. I know that consolidation will not be even close to the January 2011 completion date. I sense that considering the failure in the GPC work flow the weekend following the attempted Wisconsin consolidation they are finally dealing with the realization that the monster they have created may need a redesign already. Am I correct anyone?
ReplyDeletePrediction: Gannett is going to do its patriotic duty, and join with President Obama's freeze on federal pay for two years by agreeing to freeze pay increases for GCI employees. It's a winner, trust me.
ReplyDeleteJim,
ReplyDeleteExpect the bank to extract a fee for handling the British pounds check and expect a delay in having it credited to your account.
GPC doesn't only outsource to India. Outsourcing USA is a Pennsylvania business operated by the people who brought you AdTracker.
ReplyDeleteTake one look at their website and you'll see exactly the quality of design provided - but at least they know how to use more than times and helvetica. www.outsourcingusa.net.
It's crazy that we're sending more cash to DPS when the main product fails so often. If we knew any journalists they could follow the money.
I hate to say it, but it's a relief when you see your ad was sent to India!
ReplyDeleteThis is not a game but I am really interested in knowing if anyone truly knows about anymore layoffs coming our way this month or the first of the year?
ReplyDeleteAs more and more sites come online for the gpc you'll see more of this. The advertising side of gannett has never been that present on this blog. But now we have something to really bitch about.
ReplyDeleteThe GPC has cost me 2 accounts and revenue loss in the 10's of thousands. I can not go into detail because I know management at my site reads this blog. They might be able to put 2+2 together and figure out who I am.
ReplyDeleteI now spend between 10-15 hours a week babysitting ads not selling ads. There have been times that I've regret selling an ad because of added workload.
The reason you see more comments from the advertising side now is because we're sitting at our desks more waiting for proof corrections.
ReplyDeleteI see Point Roll is planning to move to King of Prussia, Pa., where Gannett has leased a 29,000 square foot office building to house them. Of all the possible places to locate, why did they pick King of Prussia? They have all this empty office space in McLean that could house the operation comfortably, as well as empty offices in newspapers across the country. It is somewhat interesting to note that Chris Saridakis, former head of PointRoll is now head of global marketing at GCI Commerce, which so happens is also based in King of Prussia, Pa.
ReplyDeleteanyone heard anything about some exec. editors going to be laid off in Jan?
ReplyDelete7:56 - Could be. Word has it in Westchester, HF has been stocking up on cases of Diet Coke!
ReplyDeleteGannett shuts down the press and puts space up for lease at $5.00 a square foot.
ReplyDeletehttp://granitecityproperties.com/images/stories/pdf/St_Cloud_Times_warehouse_6-28-10_-_email_version.pdf
I am so sick of the GPC! I told a client last week that we don't do ads anymore, and gave him the name of a great designer (who just happend to have recently gone freelance due to his employer dumping him).
ReplyDeleteThey probably won't spend as much or as frequently, but at least I won't have to deal with the gpc and his super complicated ads.
Anon 7:50...I heard that Jason Tafler the CEO of Pointroll is announcing that he is formally quitting this week too. I also find it peculiar that Pointroll would choose a location a stones throw away from Saridakis at GSI Commerce. Are they making it that easy for people to leave to join GSI commerce?
ReplyDeleteI'd say the ads are still going to India. My Christmas arts festival ad came back with the damn easter bunny on it! STUPID!
ReplyDeleteIf rumors are correct, Tafler isn't the only one leaving. They are nearing the day where they can collect the payoff promised them when GCI bought PointRoll. If it wasn't for the bonus, they already would be gone. How many days has it been now without a chief digital officer?
ReplyDeleteRegarding the GPC,the idea of 100's of artists skilled or unskilled sitting at GPC desks hitting the "get next" button brings a vending machine mentality to where we are in servicing our advertisers,who by the way pay for ALL of our salaries. So what,If you don't get that specific item just resolve to take what comes out of the machine! Gannett no longer cares about producing quality,just producing with the least amount of overhead. Our site has Sales complaining daily in regards to the amount of mistakes and the cumbersome working of ATOL and how a simple incorrect pickup of an ad can cause credits to derail them from ever reaching their goals. The sales reps don't trust anything will work with GPC. We were given strict rules to follow from the GPC and yet they can't seem to respond to simple requests to resolve issues. Can it be that they don't have the answers. Self service advertising is here or on it's way to your site..that's why we have the GPC..but someone forgot that the advertiser isn't like the scarecrow or tin man following Dorothy..sooner or later they'll take the road to elsewhere,then we all are doomed. With the addition of Yahoo Online ads and a whole new paperwork structure it again adds more internal workflow that doubles the load on the already understaffed support staff to process it. Lastly it would help if we had sales reps that actually knew how to sell online ! Sad state of affairs folks
ReplyDeleteIf I hear about Yahoo ads one more time I'm going to puke! We can't sell it because it's too expensive for 99% of our customers.
ReplyDeleteJust one of the problems with gannett is the arrogance toward advertisers. As someone said earlier on this blog is that the lowly advertiser (those still using our papers) are indeed paying all of the bills including the salaries of the morons who are running the company into the ground. Truth be told, advertising in most gannett papers is a very bad investment.
ReplyDeleteStill no one answers my question: is there any reason sales reps don't contact designers that have been let go? Whether we are working or not, full time or part time, I know of others like me who still enjoy designing ads for the sheer fun of it. The freelance money is a bonus. Any one out there with an answer?!
ReplyDeleteThe GPC is sending a ton of ads to India. Lots of sites have had lots of problems. Of course, we all went through this with imaging, and call centers. Imaging isn't going too badly, not great, not terrible. The call centers just plain suck. They put the "cus" in customer service.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteImaging centers aren't bad? We sent an Oregon Ducks logo to RTC to be toned and it came back blue and gold. Oregon is green and gold.
ReplyDeleteOur orange jerseys often come back red, our red jerseys orange, blue turned green, green turned blue. Are these people color blind?
And advertising isn't the only dept. feeling the GPC pinch. Paginators are stuck waiting all night for ads to show up. It's a mess.
T.H. and her staff shouldn't solely face the blame for the design failings of GPC and RTC, though I'm sure they were in on the discussion. The main failure occurred further up the ranks, with over-promising and under-delivering.
ReplyDeleteI've been told the software GPC was provided with is constantly in a state of upgrade and failure, the outsourcing choices they were given are poor quality and overpriced, and at some point, staffing levels were decided without regard to the real world. The infrastructure wasn't robust enough to begin with, and with at least three major failures in turkey week, it still ain't.
Where TH & crew fall down is agreeing to ludicrous implementation schedules and not standing up for their customers, the papers. This time last year the process was put on hold after one or two papers. October 1st we should have stopped and evaluated and left a 60 day window around Thanksgiving to protect revenue.
The other failure in the GPC process has been late ads. Anyone who's spent over 13 minutes in a newspaper building knows there will be late ads if the reps are still breathing. Composing always found a way to accommodate late ads every week, through staffing moves, overtime, outsourcing or insourcing to other departments.
The only reason there are more 'late ads' now is that we're wasting time on the 3 revisions the on-time ads are requiring. Odd, because the local gals only needed 1 and my layouts were usually scratched out on a napkin.
What will happen? As with RTC, the important work will be done locally. And as with RTC, expect a notice early next year that "Sites weren't entirely forthcoming with their reports in the design phase. There's no way you could have handled this amount of work with the staff you had, so we are adjusting your allocation to reflect what we think your rate should be."
In other words, "we aren't as efficient as the locals were, so they must have lied. No matter, you need to pay up."
Been there, done that, took the severance.
To the person asking about freelancing - the wonderful/scary part of freelancing is that you are in control. You need to make those contacts, you need to sell your services. The reps won't do it for you, they have their own problems. The good thing is you don't have to sell the asshole car dealer - but it's still work. And you still may have to do car ads.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing you may want to consider is that your design skills suck. You may have been the speediest typesetter, the best real estate formatter, a kind soul, friend to dog and child... but if your best design element was putting a rainbow gradient inside text, your name is not going to pop up as an option.
Maybe they got the wrong impression. Maybe you really are Monet on a Mac. But you're going to have to sell people on your skills. You have to become a sales rep with one product - YOU.
Jim creating a database or expecting reps to shunt their sales in your direction is fantasy. Do the work.
to answer the question 10:01 posed. All of the laid off designers at my site don't want anything to do with our paper. They've all moved on and and are overwhelmingly happier with their lives. When we see them they have this weird "glow". I've been told that's what the living look like.
ReplyDeleteWe all know Tafler is outta of here. The guy hasn't showed up in the office for weeks. He says he is on sales call, but Rob Gatto jokes that what Jason calls a "sales call" is similar to a Bat Boy getting a World Series ring for being on a winning team.
ReplyDelete9:37a that is so harsh. We know Jason doesn't do anything here, but he is no Bat Boy. He is more like an ugly cheerleader, that gets to date with the water boy.
ReplyDelete6:56 nailed it, and not just for designers but every writer, sales person, marketing exec, etc. who's been Gannett-ized. 10:01, if you sit at home, feel sorry for yourself and wait for good things to happen, then prepare to watch a long string of Oprah episodes. But if you take stock of your strengths/talents and get out and SELL yourself, that's the first step toward your next career. YOU are in control of yourself now. And it's not to say that great contract gig will come the first day, the first week or even the first month. But the time-proven theory is that, if you do a great job with even just one good gig, it has the potential to lead to another and then another and so on. And, yes, if you're good and you hustle and make deadlines and deliver quality work, you may get to the point where you don't have to spend any time on marketing yourself.
ReplyDeleteAt least that's the way it's worked for me throughout my entire GCI layoff this year: zero time marketing. 100 percent time on billable work. But you got to take the initiative 10:01. No one is going to knock on your virtual door and give you work because they know you need it.
Charles W. Nutt, president, publisher and editor of The Daily Journal in Vineland, is taking early retirement......there is splinters under his fingers from being dragged out.
ReplyDeleteMore publishers should get the heave ho, especially at low-circulation papers and those whose operations have been reduced, diluted and consolidated. Poughkeepsie and Westchester come to mind.
ReplyDeleteIs Nutt being replaced? If not, maybe the word has finally reached the Crystal Palace and the Board of Directors that it's time to cut the high-priced baggage.
If he is, why?
Regional general managers is the way to go.
ReplyDeleteThey'll probably fill Vineland. They did with Wilmington and it's not like they needed one either.
ReplyDeleteJim: Today USA Today ran an on-line story w/AP video about a prisoner who was savagely beaten by another while several guards watched through a glassed enclosure. The beating lasts long enough for the perpetrator to grow tired, sit down to take a rest and go back at his victim. Again, all under observance of corrections officers.
ReplyDeleteThe prison is run by Corrections Corporation of America. The victim had informed officials that other inmates and prison personnel were involved in drug trafficking, hence the retaliatory assault. He suffered permanent brain damage, his family sued CCA, and the state gave the victim early release because his injuries are so severe he can no longer be cared-for in a correctional facility.
Guess who sits on the board of CCA? None other than Charles Overby, leader of the Freedom Forum. Apparently CCA is involved in other lawsuits alleging similar circumstances at other CCA managed prisons. Sounds like a company culture with no moral compass. Way to go Charlie (and you too Thurgood Marshall, Jr., fellow board member).
CCA is whining about release of the video by AP, saying it risks the health and safety of their personnel and inmates. Yeah right. More like it provides clear and convincing evidence of a unaccountable work force seemingly trained to act illegally and irresponsibly while fostering a dangerous environment, and all the while taking taxpayer dollars.
Hey Charlie and Thurgood, karma is a sweet thing.
Count down should be on we are after Thanksgiving and before Christmas. Is this the month of the ax or will it be the new year.
ReplyDelete3:29 - What's a regional GM - a publisher for 2 or more newspapers?
ReplyDeleteCharlie Nutt will not be replaced. Can you say APP South? Alas, I remember Charles from his days at the C-N with the Huntress, quite the dynamic duo of the newsroom.
ReplyDeleteAre there any reports or rumors yet of the upcoming December layoffs.
ReplyDeleteWe know they will happen, as the end of the fiscal is near and revenues are down.
That, combined with newly revised downward revernue budgets for 2011 means that huge amounts of expenses must be cut.
The only remaining expenses that have not been cut to the bone are employees,at least in Gannettland management's view.
That is where the chopping has to be.
I would be ready and not at all shocked if this happens in the next week or so,just like in
2008 and 2009.December was the month when most
layoffs took place.This ,in Management's mind will allow 2011 to get off to a better revenue versus expense ratio start for the new year.
May I draw an analogy between the beating up of prisoners in a for-profit prison and the beating down of employees in a for-profit publishing firm? If rumors are right, we're in for another beating. Until morale improves, right?
ReplyDeleteFor Part 2 of this comment thread, please go here.
ReplyDelete10:26 p.m.: I've heard nothing about additional layoffs beyond the ones that just took place. And I kinda think I would have heard of any new ones by now.
ReplyDeleteHrumpf! I remember Chas Nutt from his second go around at the C-N and there wasn't a penny he didn't want to pinch very hard for the crystal palace. Nothing was sacred, including the suggestion in a meeting that it was OK to "rewrite'' articles from non-Gannett weeklies when a reporter couldn't get to a meeting. No tears are being shed by me on his departure.
ReplyDelete